1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a network element management method, a network element management apparatus, and a network management system, and in particular to a method, an apparatus, and a system for managing a network element where mounting positions on physical components of a network element are unfixed.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, network management with respect to design, maintenance, operation, and the like of a network is performed hierarchically based on a telecommunication management network (TMN) having a concept for performing advanced network management.
Management layers in the telecommunication management network TMN can be classified as shown in FIG. 13A into following layers: a service management layer SML for managing a service for customers, a network management layer NML for managing an entire network, and an element management layer EML for managing network elements as physical communication devices.
Therefore, in a general network management system, a customer service manager SMS, a network manager NMS and an element manager (or subnetwork manager) EMS shown in FIG. 13B are respectively associated with the management layers SML, NML, and EML of FIG. 13A.
FIG. 14 shows an overall arrangement of such a general network management system. A center 10 of a carrier providing a network and a terminal station 30 as well as a customer of the carrier such as a broadcasting station 20 are connected through networks DCN1 and DCN2 as shown.
In the center 10, an SM server 12, an NM server 11, and an EM server 14 are connected as shown, and respectively provide the functions of the above-mentioned customer service manager SMS, the network manager NMS, and the element manager EMS.
In the following description, the SM server 12, the NM server 11, and the EM server 14 are respectively associated with the provided functions, and are occasionally referred to as an EMS 12, an NMS 11, and an EMS 14.
However, the physical servers need not necessarily correspond one-to-one with the functions. Specifically, the element manager EMS connected to the network elements (including transmission devices) can be distributed in function not only to the physical EM server 14 but also to a plurality of physical servers.
Also, an accessory server group 13 and a center terminal 15 are connected thereto. It is to be noted that the center terminal 15 can access all of the servers.
The SM server 12 in the center 10 is connected to the network DCN1 through a router R1, and the network DCN1 is further connected to an ECC terminal 23 in the broadcasting station 20 through a router R3.
Also, the EM server 14 in the center 10 is connected to the network DCN2 through a router R2, and the network DCN2 is further connected to network elements NE21 and NE22 in the broadcasting station 20 through a router R4, and to network elements NE31 and NE32 in the terminal station 30 through a router R5.
The element manager EMS in such a network management system manages physical components of the network element such as bays, units, and cards.
A plurality of units can be mounted on a single bay, and a plurality of cards can be mounted on a single unit. Hereinafter, this will be described referring to FIGS. 15 and 16.
FIG. 15 shows a bay-unit correspondence where a plurality of units A, B, and C1–C3 are mounted on a bay Y. The units A, B, and C1–C3 are devices of different operation purposes, each of which having an individual physical size (height).
FIG. 16 shows a unit-card correspondence where a plurality of cards P1–P6 are mounted on a unit A. Among the cards P1–P6 inserted into slots (not shown) of the unit A, there are single-slot-width cards occupying a width of one slot such as the cards P1, P2, and P6, as well as double-slot-width cards occupying a width of two slots such as the cards P3–P5.
The element manager EMS of a conventional network management system assumes that the units and the cards actually exist as the physical components of the network element, so that operations for controlling such actually existing units and cards have been the mainstream.
Also, equipment type (system) design information such as an installation schedule of a network element has been controlled by a different design management system, so that processing of unit setup and card setup on the network management system have been executed when actual setup operations are necessitated based on the design information.
Therefore, the element manager EMS has not been required to manage design information such as physical setup positions and types of the individual network elements over the multiple generations.
On the other hand, the conventional network management system has been able to design network specific information such as transmission rates over the multiple generation. Also, in order to provide an efficient customer service manager in a network management system, there is a growing need for preplanning the installation schedule of equipment and the network design in the network management system based on a future contract with an end user. For this purpose, the element manager is required to realize the equipment kind design function.
The subjects of the equipment kind design function are the physical components of the network element managed by the element manager.
In order to realize the equipment kind design function, the element manager of the network management system is required to manage over the multiple generations the design information such as a removal schedule of a network element mounted at present and mounting schedule of a network element to be mounted next. Hereinafter, management of such a design information will be referred to as “generation management”.
FIG. 17 schematically shows a conventional generation management of physical components of the element manager. The above-mentioned physical components represent units or cards. Therefore, the first generation object in FIG. 17 represents the physical component at a current time T0, and if the scheduled removal time of the first generation object is T1, the physical component scheduled to be mounted after time T1, e.g. between the times T2 and T3 can be referred to a second generation object.
Conventionally, mounting positions of units on a bay and of cards on a unit have been fixed. Namely, on the bay Y shown in FIG. 15, the units A, B, and C1–C3 are mounted in the order shown. For example, the mounting positions of the units A and B cannot be exchanged up side down. Also, on the unit A shown in FIG. 16, the cards P1–P6 are mounted in the order shown. For example, the mounting positions of the cards P1 and P6 cannot be exchanged from left to right.
FIG. 18 shows a model of the conventional generation management. The horizontal axis shows logical numbers L1–L6 indicating positions in a bay, and the vertical axis shows time “t”. Also, areas surrounded by solid lines in FIG. 18 indicate schedules where the units associated with the reference characters A, B, and C1–C3 included in the areas will be set.
Moreover, areas B′ and D′ surrounded by alternate long and short lines represent terms without schedules for setting the units B and D.
In the generation management shown in FIG. 18, the mounting positions of the units B, C1, D, A, C2, and C3 are fixed on the mounting positions shown respectively by the logical numbers L1–L6. Therefore, the generation management of these logical numbers L1–L6 had only to be performed.
In this case, only the unit B is mounted on the mounting position of e.g. the logical number L1. Therefore, only the management of whether or not the unit B is mounted on the mounting position of the logical number L1 has been required.
Also, since the mounting positions (slots) of the cards to be mounted on the unit have been fixed, the generation management could be performed by the same method as that for mounting units on a bay by allocating logical numbers to the slots of the unit.
In recent years, along with the trend toward use of multiple vendor network elements and commonality of network element backbones, the mainstream of the network element has shifted from the method fixing the positions of the units mounted on the bay and the cards mounted on the unit to a method unfixing the mounting position by using a common specification. Namely, the unit can be mounted on any position of the bay as long as there is an empty space with a size (height) enough for the mounting unit. Also, the card mounted on a unit can be inserted into any slot.
In such a state where it is not required to fix the mounting positions of the units and the cards that are the physical components of the network unit, the conventional generation management method using the logical numbers associated with the mounting positions is inefficient.
Since it has been the mainstream to manage in a state where the physical components are actually mounted, there has been no function for allocating the mounting schedule of the units or the cards that have not yet existed.
In the example of FIG. 18, a case is assumed where mounting of a new unit “i” (not shown) having the same size as the unit A is desired from the time TA for the same term as the unit A scheduled to be mounted on the mounting position of the logical number L4.
When the conventional generation management method is applied, the logical number L3 that is the mounting position for the unit D has been allocated the same size as the unit A, so that there is a possibility that the unit “i” can be mounted. However, the mounting position of the logical number L3 has the unit D mounted at the time TA. Therefore, the unit “i” cannot be mounted on the mounting position of the logical number L3 for the desired term.
As for the logical number L1, that is the mounting position for the unit B, although there is enough time where there is no setup schedule of the unit B as shown by the blank area B′, the fixed sizes respectively allocated to the logical numbers L1 and L4 are different from each other, so that it is impossible to mount the unit “i” on the mounting position of the logical number L1.
Thus, when it is possible to flexibly change the mounting positions of the units on the bay, the occupancy of the bay cannot be achieved efficiently enough by the conventional generation management method. This problem is common to the generation management of the cards mounted on the unit.
Moreover, the following problems exist in the management of the cards. The above-mentioned cards P3–P5 in FIG. 16 are the double-slot-width cards. Therefore, the width of the slots being used is physically a width for two slots. However, since only one slot is actually inserted into the backboard, the network element can recognize only one slot.
FIG. 19A shows a part of a unit where a card is installed in a position of slots 1 and 3 within slots 1–8 lined on an upper and a lower row. Meanwhile, FIG. 19B shows information managed on the network management system. Namely, the network element recognizes that only one single-slot-width card is installed in the slot 3 which is actually inserted into the backboard and that a card is not installed in the slot 1.
There has been no problem in particular with the conventional management method fixing the mounting position of the card. However, in case of performing a generation management without fixing the mounting positions of the cards, the element manager EMS is required to recognize that while the double-slot-width card is installed in the slot 3, the slot 1 cannot be used.
Also, in order to realize a redundant structure of the network element, some of the cards depending on the types thereof restrict the mounting of other cards on the adjoining slots.
The element manager EMS is also required to recognize that the adjoining slots cannot be used while such a card disabling the use of the adjoining slots is mounted.